BlogHer paid me to read this book and write a review. The words and thoughts are my own, as if you couldn't tell.
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I read Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan for BlogHer.
It was extremely well written. The author says she's a newspaper reporter, and you can tell that she is actually really good at her job, because unlike a lot of erotica [ahem, Fifty Shades of Gray], this writer understands sentence structure, grammar, and has the ability to engage her reader.
This book? Was really good. And weird. But good.
This book is very frank - both sexually and in a matter-of-fact way. I liked reading it and it kept me reading. Even during the parts where I was thinking, "WHAT THE HOLY FUCK? WHY WOULD YOU? THAT'S NOT RIGHT!" and getting freaked out, I kept reading. Because this isn't just a smutty book - although it is a that, a bit - it's a really fascinating glimpse into a world that was maybe on my periphery but not a space that I knew anything about.
I'm not one to judge. Actually, we all know I AM one to
judge. But I tend to be pretty open minded about pretty much everything, and I can't really judge this woman. I mean, I am certainly in no way advocating abuse as part of any relationship - and, while she gets off on it, the physical and emotional punishment is abuse - but I'm having a hard time drawing a line about judging her. She's extremely forthright and her explanations for why she chooses to have her partner treat her so painfully and in such a degrading way ring true for her. I just can't fathom wanting, needing someone to be so violent - emotionally and physically - in order to be sexually and emotionally fulfilled.
I'm honestly surprised at how much I've thought about this book. Not the sexy stuff, but the submissive stuff. After my initial "THAT IS SO FUCKED UP" reaction, I wonder if she's just kidding herself or if she's truly making the right choice for herself.
Have any of you read this book? Or Fifty Shades of Grey? Evidently this was written as a sort of response to Fifty Shades, because Sophie Morgan thinks that the female character in Fifty Shades was abused and doesn't get the dynamic of a dominant/submissive relationship right. I don't know.
I really just don't know.
Okay, now I'm crazy interested. If I wasn't a work I'd totally go order that book off Amazon immediately.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this. I like "smart" erotica. Checking it out!
ReplyDeleteHmmm, this sounds interesting in a sick way. The kind of thing you hope you don't see yourself in when you read :)
ReplyDeleteAfter suffering through all three "Shades" books this summer, I want to get my hands on this one. I don't have enough room here to describe the 50 shades of nausea I felt reading the trilogy. Maybe it was because I never cave in to the must-read book list but I did this time. Maybe it was the ridiculous plot, character development, and dialog. I don't know. The subject is fascinating to me nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteI'm one of your fellow BHBC reviewers and was beginning to think there was something wrong with me because I enjoyed it. I've read and studied the dynamics of D/s relationships, and this is the best written of everything I have read. These are not easy to understand relationships (but for that matter, what relationship is easy?) but I find the whole thing fascinating. I enjoyed reading your viewpoint. And I read mine at one sitting. Couldn't put it down. :)
ReplyDeleteSo it's a memoir? I try not to judge but that is one thing I will never understand.
ReplyDeleteI think I need to read this . . . I know my own issue is that while I write characters that have stories & reasons . . . I never explore them.
ReplyDeleteSimply, in my own smut, I have prostitutes -- they show up for the scene and that's it, and they're left. And I know that's what's holding me back from actually becoming a successful smut writer.
OH MY GOSH SUNI and WHY in Sam's Hell would you know???
ReplyDeleteYou crack me up.
xo